bruce d

Ken, that is a great subject and I'm looking forward to seeing sawdust. Bruce

In post #12 I gave a teasing view of something that looked a little like a ship. It was made of the stacks of cut frame pieces seen at the end of post#3, just piled on edge in the right order. They remained stuck together, held by the CA & painter’s tape trick. It’s time to separate them and start some assembly. The CA/tape method worked well. Here is a stack of four frames, still perfectly aligned: Starting with a dull scalpel forced into one of the gaps, I ran it all the way around until the tape starts to give way. It opens like a clam: The painter’s tape leaves no residue. After peeling off whatever tape is left I immediately wrote the frame number on both sides of both pieces. A thorough inspection of each piece revealed a couple of rejects caused by my over-doing the CA, leading to CA on the wood. As the centres of the frames will be removed later this is not a problem but during the earlier steps there can be no high-spots when the frames are glued together face to face. Here I am dealing with a small blob and lump of tape before sanding it level. If it is too large, I would discard the piece and make a replacement. Next step is to glue two frame halves together with a butt joint. This is the jig for the assembly. It is checked for square from time to time. So, finally some assembly. The two frame halves with CA applied, pushed into position and held flat while the bond forms. There is a piece of non-stick paper between the jig face and the frames. Success. About a quarter of the frames done, notice there are a couple of duds, plus some of the thicknessed pear wood to be used in the next step. Bruce

Babushka-saw.mp4

Welcome to MSW from Sussex, hope to see some of your work. Bruce

Bonjour Alain and a warm welcome to MSW from the UK. I look forward to seeing your work. Bruce

Hello John, yes, it will coincide with a particular step in the Berwick build (soon, I hope!).

Hello Pat, Good points. I considered a T track system but stuck with the spine & straight edge design. I was naively expecting to make the whole building board in minutes when I decided to tackle Berwick. The written words by Reed and McNarry just brush past this part and the more I looked at it the more I saw it as a 'make or break' part of the model. We'll see if I chose right! Cheers, Bruce

The building board. This style of construction requires a building board with distinct features. It seems there are no rules (whew!) for what the finished building board should look like as long as those features are present and the whole thing is stout enough to take a surprising amount of handling, bracing, clamping and abuse. Time will tell if/how mine can be improved. What is needed is a flat surface with a raised piece, call it a ‘spine’, running lengthwise. The spine must be straight, of uniform dimensions and tough enough to survive the building process (coming soon). The frames of the model will be aligned horizontally on this spine so it should not be vulnerable to wear. At either end there must be a flat face, square to the board, for vertical alignment. One of these faces can be fixed but the other must be able to be positioned firmly anywhere along the spine. The first board I made simply wasn’t going to be good enough. I haven’t included photos but I realised the material of the base and the spine were vulnerable to wear and knocks and I would end up in a mess. Cue some rethinking. The Mk11 board, see below, has a much greater chance of keeping things straight as the hull is assembled, dis-assembled and re-assembled as is required in this building system. To describe the beast: starting at the bottom, a dense chipboard cabinet door (the grey board) has one true straight long edge. Screwed to this is a section of laminate flooring, upside down, with truly parallel long sides. This is mounted off-set so one edge is flush with an edge of the bottom and the other creates a step giving a convenient place to mount a surface gauge. The smooth flat surface of this upper piece forms the working surface of the ‘shipyard’ and will resist wood glues. The accuracy of the spine is crucial to the alignment of the frames during construction as it is the constant reference as the various assembly/re-assembly processes unfold. A piece of cherry 5.5mm wide and 9mm high was clamped and weighted to ensure it was absolutely straight and central when epoxied to the laminate. It is a bit longer than the model and if I have thought this through correctly that extra length will be handy. Painter’s tape kept the epoxy from grabbing the batten used for a straight-edge when clamping. Checking: it worked. The ugly assembly at one end has a flat face perpendicular to the baseboard surface and the centreline. It is secured with a thumb-screw so it can be fettled back into position if it’s alignment is compromised. A series of notches along the top will allow rubber bands to be used for clamping and I will add a few pegs if needed. The ‘working’ face is 20 thou ( .5mm ) white plasticard, stuck on with double-sided tape and easily replaced if damaged. Again, wood glue won’t adhere to this material. At the other end of the board the lump of mahogany also presents a perpendicular face. It has a central groove to fit snugly over the spine and is square where it matters. The groove is long enough that it won’t twist in position. A snug fit is needed. It turns out a bit of fettling was needed to relieve tight spots: Test, test and test again. I will apply a touch of paste wax on the spine and in the groove. I will work out the best way of clamping/binding the movable piece in position once I get started. This arrangement may look clumsy and over-engineered but will remain stable on the bench. It will be possible to use a height gauge on all sides around the model as construction advances. The removable end-pieces are my ‘security blanket’ as I hurtle towards the unknown. Bruce

Hello Igor and welcome to MSW from the UK. Perhaps you would like to post some pictures of your models? Bruce

Using the link in post #19 above, this database is the alphabetical list of subjects so look at the vertical menu on the left; RATTLESNAKE will be in the set ‘No.77 – Sea’.

Arkivalieronline (sa.dk) Have fun!

Here you go, use the 'SAVE' icon in the top right group above the image and it opens in a new tab. All plans are accessible from the column to the left. Arkivalieronline (sa.dk) HTH, Bruce EDIT: I should have said also that there are only four plans there for Lapwing. G5757 - 5760.

Hello again Tim, I was about to offer sympathy and suggest an aspirin sandwich but it looks like you are on top of it. However, I still have one comment. If, and I will not try to guess, if the bulkheads you have ended up with reconcile with the original plans of Lapwing, then you have the ability to add more bulkheads easily. The Danish plans are hi-res and G5757 has around 17 or 18 stations. Ignore if I am telling Granny about eggs. Bruce

Hi Tim, this is the last from the Danish Archive attributed to Lapwing: HTH, Bruce

Very brief update: it's begun!

Hello Ships Carpenter and welcome to MSW. Those two projects sound impressive, may I suggest telling us a bit about yourself and starting a build log (or two)? Regards, Bruce

Beautiful work.

Hello Herby and welcome to MSW from the UK.

Welcome to MSW from the UK.

If I had been given one of these as a kid, I would have headed straight for a twisty downhill road. One way or another, first thing to do would be to test it's performance.

Looks like fun but ... wouldn't brakes be a selling point?

Thanks for the input. As for which method I am using, well, that is part of the attraction of the Reed/McNarry style. It can be seen in the third photo in my first post. In it, all the hull assembled so far consist of pieces that started out being a solid shape representing a portion of the hull and then, in the best manner of a sculptor, you chop away everything that doesn't look like framing. In the photo you can see some as yet unfinished pieces behind the partly finished hull. The centres have not yet been removed. Mine will look similar but instead of each frame being from one piece of wood it will be of two butt-jointed on the centre line and re-enforced by the next frame which is made of three pieces, one of which is glued across the bottom. The cross grain problems you offered advice on are (so far) not cropping up. Things got better when I settled on alternating solid pieces with smaller strips of the same thickness at right angles across the lower section. I hope you follow that jumbled description: if not, I should be bringing the first sets of parts together soon so watch this space.

This one? Thanks for the encouragement. I have a stack of Swiss Pear on standby.

The four are now cut to shape in one operation on the scroll saw and set aside still attached to each other. The final shaping is done with a small drum sander. ... and checked. … and immediately put away before I can do any harm. By the way, this is my new favourite tool. Seriously, it makes me giggle it is so good. Tool review to follow. ____ Next is the building board. Bruce

I am using Swiss Pear for the hull. There are 27 hull sections and four frames in each. From my available stock I could produce rectangles 50 x 44 mm which means the majority of the frames will be made from two of these blanks side by side. First steps in milling from blocks of Swiss Pear: Rough cut: they were then put through my shop-made thicknesser. Ready to cut to size on the Byrnes saw. … and then the blanks are sorted. ______ There are twenty-seven hull sections: Each hull section was printed on card and cut carefully to shape. The red line on the card is lined up with the top (short) edge of a blank and the centre-line aligned with the long edge. The importance of a perfect 90 degree corner here will be evident soon. Using the card as a guide the shape is transferred to the pear blank with a mechanical pencil. Note the grain runs vertically. The blank is immediately marked with the profile name to avoid mistakes. This marked blank is now used as the top in a stack of four blanks, held together with blue painter’s tape/CA glue. This avoids getting any glue on the wood. If you don’t know the tape/CA trick, here’s how it works: Put blue painter’s tape on the two surfaces opposite each other. Put a few small dabs of CA on one of the tape surfaces and bring the two together, aligning carefully. I make a stack of four with the middle two having tape on both sides and the result is perfectly stable for scroll sawing. The painter’s tape leaves no residue when removed. I don’t bother with a CA accelerator since I want a moment to ensure things are lined up before the CA grabs. Clamp or use weights as in pic below. I may have gone a little over the top with the weights. (Since these photos were taken I now glue-up two stacks of four at once with no problems.) Once the CA has cured you can handle the assembly like it was one piece and as long as you can avoid lateral pressures they will stay in line. Bruce